New Year's Weekend in Paris!
Night 0: Snow fun and manwich soup
(Cheeky speaking) It snowed enough to accumulate the night before we left for Paris, which is a rare thing around here! In what must've been a sudden loss of sanity, the humans left the warm apartment and went outside. They rolled around in the snow, and built what they kept calling "snowmen" ... though the creations were neither bipedal nor gender specific. Hmm. Ross started off with a giant snow ball which collapsed under its own weight, sending him into a snow-crushing frenzy. Eventually he put a second, moderately sized snowball together, and seemed content. Leah's version came together without problems, though was slightly crooked. Decorated with sticks and nuts for eyes, the humans seemed content and went inside to warm up with some manwich soup (when all you have is a slow cooker, some things are hard to make!)
Note: The "snowmen" collapsed about 30 minutes later... it was very wet snow and about 34 degrees outside, so everything melted quickly. By the morning, the only snow left on the ground were the ruins of these majestic statues.
Day 1, morning: To Paris
(Leah speaking) Our train to Paris left early Saturday morning, so we got to the station a bit early to park and grab some breakfast - I had a big floppy bread of mozzarella and tomatoes and Ross had a "Fitness Brotchen" (brotchen=bread.) Once we were fueled up, we headed for our train, platform 3 (I was hoping for platform 9 3/4) where we ran into one of my deployed co-workers, and his wife, who was also visiting for the holidays. The train arrived right on schedule and we quickly got to our seats.
We took the "ICE" bullet train from Kaiserslautern. With only two stops between us and Paris, and hitting 200mph at one point, it was a mere 2 hour ride in total... nice and quick! It started out cold and rainy when we left Germany, but the sun popped out along the way, a welcome treat as we hadn't seen much of the sun at all since Ross has been here (apparently Germany is just like Wisconsin, we don't see much of the sun all winter.)
When we arrived in Paris, it was fairly warm - in the mid-50s! We walked into the train station to hit the bathroom before trying to find metro tickets. The bathrooms were pay toilets, which is relatively common in Europe. We each paid our 70 cents to pee. The ladies' line was 10 times as long as the men's - go figure! After that was taken care of, we scoped out the massive line for metro passes and quickly determined it would be faster to just walk to our hotel than wait. The walk was pretty easy and got to the hotel in probably the same amount of time it would have taken to get a metro ticket.
We arrived at our Hotel Montmarte Amour around noon, but our room wasn't ready yet. We left our bags and headed back to the metro to do some exploring in the city. The station we went to did not have a long line for tickets, but there were some unsavory dudes trying to sell us "good deal" passes. We kept telling him no, since we wanted 3-day passes and not whatever probably-expired or stolen junk he was trying to sell us. He got grouchy and said "F*** you and F*** your money!" ... Welcome to Paris. *sigh*. That was the only trouble we really had on the metro. Once we had our tiny little three day-unlimited ride tickets, we were ready to ride! It took a minute to figure out where to put the ticket to get through the gate, but once that was figured out, we were almost pros. We looked up what line we needed and headed towards our first destination: The Louvre.
Day 1, afternoon: The Louvre
(Ross speaking) Two days before we left, we watched The Da Vinci Code. By the time we arrived at the Louvre, we were ready to uncover all the secrets and look behind paintings, though were slightly concerned about what Paris prisons would be like. As we arrived, there were lots of people walking around outside near the famous glass pyramid, posing so it looks like their finger is touching the top of the pyramid. You know what they say... "When in Rome!" ... I lined up a perfect shot of Leah doing this for our memory books!
By the time we were done goofing around with photos and hopped into the line to enter the museum, it had started to sprinkle, but nothing that would scare us away. Hovering all around the waiting line are all the street vendors selling crappy little Eiffel tower trinkets and umbrellas. One of them was really trying to push the umbrellas... he kept saying "Umbrella, umbrella umbrella" over and over in his strange foreign (not french) accent... not sure how well it worked for him, but there were enough of them there that they must be making some money! After maybe 45 min in line we made it into the Louvre.
We only had 4 or 5 hours to explore what the Louvre had to offer, so we tried to make the most of it. We saw plenty of cool works of art, including The Mona Lisa. It's quite amusing trying to get up to see it. The painting itself isn't very large, but it has an entire wall to itself, and it's behind bulletproof glass. We smashed in with the rest of the crowd and were amused with everyone else taking photos and selfies of it. Photographic masterpieces that they'll share with their great grandchildren, I'm sure!
Aside from the Mona Lisa, we saw all sorts of things. TONS of paintings of Jesus (usually in two forms: as a baby or at his death. Neither of us had seem a more extensive collection of just those two subjects.) One of my favorite paintings is "Pandemonium" by John Martin which depicts an army of demons in front of a hell fortress... very impressive, showing the vastness and terror that of this place. Leah enjoyed all the statues of Mercury (aka Hermes) scattered throughout the museum. He's the Roman messenger god with wings on his ankles (she has those tattoos on her ankles!) We both liked the paintings of a faces made entirely of fruits and vegetables - we're pretty sure that will be us someday!
By 4pm, we noticed that, having skipped lunch to get to the museum, we were famished! We stopped in the museum cafe and had a salad and caprese sandwich, super tasty Schweppes drinks (tangerine flavor and a (virgin) mojito flavor ... If you see them, try them, you won't be disappointed!) and finally some vanilla filled pastries for dessert ... YUM! Once we gobbled up our food, we headed back into the museum. We only had about 60-90 minutes left, so we tried to get a few more exhibits in.
We saw some Ancient Egyptian art and endless halls of statues. The size of this place cannot be explained - it'd take months to see it all! We found one painting particularly amusing: King Louis IV, with a comically smug look on his face, standing triumphantly on a slain multi-headed dragon... all while missing pants. It's as if he's saying "Yep, check me out. I just killed this beast, no big deal. Oh, you noticed I wasn't wearing pants? Take it all in. I look magnificent." Every painting or statue of this guy seems to have this facial expression - he was probably a blast to be around!
At about 5:30pm, the "museum-is-closing" announcement was made, so we headed towards the exit. There, we found the inverted pyramid from The Da Vinci Code and almost started digging (we know the secret!) but opted for some photos instead. There's a small mall as you exit the museum and head to the metro station, which we skipped, and headed for our next stop instead.
Day 1, evening: Wine Cave, Dirty Dicks, and the Moulin Rogue
(Leah speaking) A quick metro ride took us to another part of Paris. The fun thing about the metro is that you're not quite sure what you're going to see when you come up from underground. A park? A city street? A dark alley? Your guess is as good as mine. Even though we had some maps we never knew quite where to go once we were on the surface. Thanks to screenshots and GPS, we found Caves Auges fairly easily.
Caves Auges is a wine store that has probably thousands of bottles of wine all over the place, the walls are filled from floor to ceiling, with barely any room to walk around. After a little exploration we found a cherry table wine that sounded good. A worker explained the intricacies - that we'll need to let it breathe for 30 minutes after we open it to release the natural gas that builds up in the bottle. It was amazing that they know so much about all the different wine in the shop.
By now, it was getting late, but we thought we'd take a chance at another Paris landmark, the Catacombs. They were open until 8:30, letting people in until 7:30. It was only 7, but the line was so long that we missed the cutoff... bummer! Guess that will be on the list next time we come to Paris! We hopped back on to the metro and headed back towards our hotel in Montmartre instead.
We finally got into our room and settled in for a little bit. It had been a long day, and we were tempted to just call it a night, but decided to push onward and check out a bit of the Paris nightlife. Our hotel was at the base of the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, so we climbed a few hundred stairs up to the church. Similar to coming around the corner and finding the big cathedral in Strasbourg, when we reached the top of the stairs, we looked up and BAM! there was the basilica. It's a huge, very impressive building. The view from the top of hill was even more impressive - you can see the whole city, including the Eiffel Tower all lit up, if you don't mind the wind. Yikes!
The basilica was open for people to walk around, so we followed the crowd inside. When we first entered, it seemed as if we walked into another mass: there were a lot of people seated in the pews, someone talking and then some singing. We felt like we were intruding, but it turns out it was an opera concert - it was very good and very pretty, and we didn't feel so bad wandering around the building. We made it all around the building, taking in the cool stained glass windows, statues, and endless candles - hard to believe this place hasn't burnt down with all these open flames!
We left the basilica and headed down the stairs towards the heart of Montmartre. We came across a funny black cat that was slinking up the steps. It saw us, stopped for a second, then launched itself into a giant bush just off the side of the stairs. Was there a cat home in that bush? You'd never know by looking at it!
Finally down the stairs, after a bit of wandering, we found our dinner location: an Italian place. It was 9pm, late for dinner according to US standards, but the restaurant was packed full. I ordered a glass of Lambrusco and Ross a martini. We had a bruschetta appetizer, and each had a tasty pasta dish. My chair was right next to a radiant heater - so warm and so happy! We finished up, and set off toward a local bar that we had found the other day...."Dirty Dicks".
Why would we go to a place called Dirty Dicks? It's a tiki themed bar and their logo is two pineapples, so you know we had to check it out! It was within walking distance of our hotel too, bonus! It was shoulder-to-shoulder packed, and warm as the tropics inside. The whole place is decorated very similar to "Foundation" back home. We managed to find a menu and picked out some drinks - a Painkiller for me, and a Mai Tai for Ross. We eventually found two seats next to a few locals, and chatted about the city and what to do on New Years Eve. We finished up our conversation and drinks, and on the way out, got a photo of one of the bartenders in their double-pineapple shirt. On a whim, I asked if they sold them... for us, they sure do! I am now the proud owner of one Dirt Dick shirt - yay!
By now it was long past our bedtime, BUT the famous Moulin Rouge was within eye sight so of course we were going to stop by to check it out. On our walk we realized we stumbled upon the "Red Light District" of Paris: quite a few sassy shop and shows for all to see! There was a small crowd doing the same thing we were, just taking photos in front of Moulin Rouge. We looked into spending New Year's Eve at Moulin Rouge, but decided 1000 Euros a person was a bit too steep for us. After a photo, we headed back to the hotel.
Our hotel had the word "Amour" aka "Love" in it for a reason - the love theme is everywhere! It's well done, not tacky. Each room is named after a famous couple, ours was Paul and Tehura after Paul Gaugin and his Tahitian wife. It had been a good first day in Paris, but a long day. It was after midnight, and time to get some rest! We had lots to do for our only full day in Paris!
Steps taken: 18,631
Kilometers walked: 12
Flights of stairs climbed: 35
Day 2, morning: A boat tour and THE TOWER
(Ross speaking) We woke with a startle to our alarm - ugh! Nightlife is not so much fun come the morning! We put ourselves together, avoided touching the Nespresso machine, grabbed a few croissants from the hotel, and gobbled those on the way to the metro station. French breakfast is a goofy thing, the exact opposite of the "rib sticking" feasts back home. A traditional French breakfast is a tiny coffee, a small but delicious pastry or two, and maybe some orange juice. (Mumbles something about the USA having nearly three times the heart disease and obesity rates as France. Mmm double bacon breakfast crunchwrap supreme FTW.)
Alas, we had to keep moving to make our Sein river boat tour on time! The metro dropped us off right at Notre Dame, which we got a short glimpse of as we hustled toward Pont Neuf. Unlike the tour in Strasbourg, there was no one waiting for this one, we had time to grab a relatively normal size cup of coffee and relax before boarding. Once on board, you can choose to sit upstairs on the top of the boat, or downstairs enclosed behind windows. We opted for upstairs, which was windy and cold, but still worth it. Unlike the Strasbourg tour, there was no pre-recorded tour guide to listen to - we had a live in-person guide who gave the tour in both French and English. Sometimes it was a little hard to understand, but she did a very good job. She pointed out a bunch of bridges and famous landmarks. We saw Notre Dame, the Luxor Obelisk (located in Concorde Plaza,) the Louvre, and of course the Eiffel Tower! This was our first good look at the tower and it was great! The tour took an hour and was a good overview of Paris. We were glad it wasn't raining.
After the boat tour, we walked over to Notre Dame. We could tell the line was LONG, but what we thought was the end of the line was actually the middle: it made a U-turn and went the length of the plaza yet again. Hells no! We checked it out from the outside instead. On the way out of the plaza, we noticed the Archaeological Crypt. Our boat tour gave us a 2 Euro discount each for entry, so we checked that out instead. Turns out there were a bunch of old Roman structures, coins and artifacts buried under the current location of Notre Dame. They built the cathedral smack dab on top of these older structures, and uncovered them as they were starting to put in a parking structure (which was relocated after these ruins were found.) It wasn't the most exciting museum, but interesting nonetheless.
After the crypt, we found a corner cafe for some lunch. They were very busy and the squeezed us into a spot that seemed a bit too tight, but we all made it work. The table was barely big enough for both our plates and glasses of water. I had a veggie omelette and Leah had (French) Onion Soup and a banana & Nutella crepe. Yes, in France French Onion soup is just called onion soup.
From here, our original plan brought us to the Rodin Museum where the statues "The Thinker" and "Gates of Hell" are located. However, our excitement to see the Eiffel Tower won out and we headed straight there instead. A quick metro hop and short walk later, there it was! We had a few blocks of park to walk to get up to it, but we had finally made it. We came across a small Christmas market, including some very slushy ice skating, and breezed through that quickly - it was tiny compared to what we saw last weekend. The road right in front of the tower was blocked off, so we had to back track just a bit to find an entrance to the space under the tower. The security line was short and easy.
We wanted to climb the tower, and had heard that the line for the stairs would be shorter than the elevator, so we jumped into that line. By this time, the wind had picked up and clear skies turned to overcast. Standing in that line was not the most pleasant: The cold wind, and the three chatterboxes behind us; they were like totally valley girls, but spoke some odd language and the only words we could understand would make a sailor blush!
We toughed it out, and just as we made it to the steps up to the ticket booth, the rain started. Awesome. We weren't about to turn around at this point, so up the steps we went! It wasn't raining that hard, but it was still windy, and the rain stung. We went up quickly, only stopping briefly to read some of the information about the guy who build the Eiffel Tower: Gustave Eiffel. There are 300 steps from the ground to the first level. The view is great! You can see all of Paris. It was unfortunate that the weather wasn't better. We weren't anxious to stay very long. There was a gift shop, cafe, and bathroom on the first stop where we went in to warm up. Leah headed for the bathroom, so I quick snuck over to a vendor and picked up a necklace of a little Eiffel tower holding a round Swarovski crystal. (Leah: A wonderful memento of a fabulous weekend! Thanks, Love!)
By now, we were warm enough to make the second set of 300 stairs to level 2. The views were even better from higher up. We took some photos on each side of the tower and used the 360 degree camera as well. It was still chilly, windy, and rainy, so our stay was shorter than we would have liked, but it was time to go. Down we went, where we got a few final smooches under the tower, then set off towards out next stop.
We made a quick stop at the Arc de Triomphe, but it was closed: they were setting up for the New Year's celebration - should've seen that coming. We hopped into the nearest the metro and headed in the direction of where our dinner reservations were instead. Since we were an hour early, we stopped at the nearby "Willy's Wine Bar" - Leah had a glass of Riesling and I picked out some kind of red, both tasty. We were the only ones there, even hardly saw any staff. They, who to our surprise were British, were busy preparing the place for the New Year's Eve dinner, tut tutting around getting tables ready, slicing giant loaves of bread, etc. We eventually caught their attention, paid our bill, and made our way to dinner.
Day 2, evening: Lavish Dinner and the NYE countdown
(Leah speaking) Three steps to our left was our restaurant, Maceo. (Turns out Willy's and Maceo are owned by the same person - I noticed the same guy come into the restaurant that was rearranging champagne bottles at Willy's. The set menus looked very similar as well.) Once again, I felt extremely out of place - we were the very first people in the restaurant. Europeans must eat dinner later than us! Soon after, more people came in, so I felt better.
Like many places, there was a set menu for New Year's Eve, and there was a vegetarian option for all four courses - hurray! Both of us had the same first three courses: Pumpkin soup, vegetable risotto, and vegetable borscht. Dessert is the only place we chose different items: I had a pineapple souffle and coconut ice cream while Ross had a sherbet and fruit medley. We also ordered a bottle of Riesling and some bubbly water.
It was all very fancy: we got new silverware for each course, our main waiter always made sure to fill our wine glasses for us, and there was a small army of a staff there to take care of us. One took us to our seat, one took our food order, one took our wine order, one served all our food. It was quite the experience and definitely the most expensive dinner either of us had ever experienced. At one point, the American couple next to us started talking about vegetarianism and the man asked the woman what she considered an animal, followed by a totally reasonable scenario for her to ponder: "if you were starving...would you eat your pet cat!?" We laughed at the absurdity, but decided not to interrupt - perhaps they become stranded and starving with only pet cats to eat more often than we do!? We finished up our desserts and wine, and even though we were the first to arrive, we were not the first to leave. We managed to stretch dinner out for two hours, which meant only three hours to new years!
We had plenty of time to walk back towards the Arc de Triomphe, the epicenter of the Paris NYE celebration. By now, the rain had stopped, a welcome surprise. Along the way, we walked past the Luxor Obelisk in Concorde Plaza which is right at the end of the Champs-Elysees. Traffic was closed off, so we were free to walk down the middle of the Champs-Elysees - that's a once in a lifetime opportunity! There were two security checkpoints as we walked closer to the Arc (we later read there were nearly 2000 police officers just at our location - impressive!)
There were also giant screens set up along the road so the thousands of people that were filling in would be able to see what was projected on the Arc. While we were walking and filling in, a video was on repeat showing different spots in Paris and a video about the upcoming 2024 Olympics. About 90 minutes before midnight we decided on a spot. The closer to midnight it got, and the closer to the arc, the more and more people crammed in. Estimates from last year's celebration said there were over 600,000 people in attendance, and we have no doubt it was the same this year.
Ross has the advantage of being tall, so the amount of people wasn't a problem for him. I, on the other hand was struggling. I could see about the top half of the Arc and the closest TV screen depending on where the head in front of me was. About 30 minutes prior to midnight, different projections were displayed on the Arc with the time. They changed each minute. When it was about 20 minutes to midnight a cartoon video started to project onto the Arc. It was the story of a cat looking for its yellow-shoed owner: very cute! With one minute before midnight the people right in front of us popped their kid up on their shoulders, and now neither of us could see anything!
All of a sudden the video showed the countdown of 3 - 2 - 1! (The countdown had started with more time than that, but we missed it since the jokers in front of us were hoisting that kid up.) Luckily we caught those last 3 seconds! HAPPY NEW YEAR! A wild fireworks show ensued, with plenty of oohs and aaahs from the crowd.
In advance, we decided that we'd get the heck out of there as soon as possible, and picked some potential escape routes. The folks in charge also had that idea... less than 5 minutes after the new year, the TV screens switched away from the magical fireworks and lights show, now coldheartedly telling everyone that traffic would be starting again soon and to get to the nearest metro station. So much for the festivities!
All public transport had been free from 5pm NYE to noon on 1 Jan. We knew that the first metro station would most likely be packed so we just started walking in the general direction of our hotel thinking another metro might be better. When you have over a half million people crammed into one small area, getting them out is no easy task. We imagined this would be what a mass evacuation during a zombie apocalypse would be like. The first metro station was worse than we imagined, the entire entrance was completely overstuffed with people up onto the sidewalk and into the streets... hard to imagine what it looked like underground. The streets were packed with pedestrians past the second and third metro stations... this was the biggest crowd either of us have ever been in.
We ended up walking the whole way to our hotel - it probably took the same amount of time (or less) than trying to fit onto public transport. The closer to our hotel we got, the less crowded it got. We survived! We made it back just before 2am, totally spent. After disabling all alarm clocks, we got to bed.
Steps walked: 22,481
Kilometers traveled: 14.2
Equivalent flights climbed: 62
Day 3: A slow morning, and back to base
(Ross speaking) Needless to say, we slept in on our final day in Paris! We weren't sure what time checkout was, but weren't too concerned about it. We managed to get our butts moving and out of the room by noon, checked out, our deposit back, and hit the road looking for some breakfast.
It was a very rainy morning, enough to bust out the umbrella. A small cafe just across the street from our hotel offered a traditional petit dejeuner, so we each ordered one. A glass of orange juice, cup of coffee, two croissants, and another pastry with chocolate. SO GOOD! We were determined to eat some croissants while in Paris, so after breakfast we found a bakery to get more baked goods to go. We got a traditional baguette, some croissants, a baguette with butter and cheese, and a round flaky pastry with some sweet almond paste filling. Everything was delicious, and we're still kicking ourselves for not buying more!
Being New Years Day, we knew a lot of things would be closed, and the cold rain made exploring the outdoors difficult. We rolled the dice and headed back to the mall attached to the Louvre - nope, the gate from the metro station was closed and locked, drat! We surfaced, and wandered along a few streets, past the handful of shops and tourist traps that were actually open. Eventually we found the only place to get an American sized coffee: Starbucks. We hung out there for a bit while the rain cleared. Since it was sunny for the moment, we started walking. We saw some big impressive building (the Paris Opera) off in the distance, so we made our way towards it. It was closed, but we were able to meander around the outside, which was beautifully adorned with statues and carvings (isn't everything around here?)
We found our train, got to our seats, and settled in for the 2 1/2 hour ride. About half way through, Leah wasn't feeling well, so we made our way to the food car for some fizzy water and snacks. This helped, got her away from vomit town, and the rest of the ride was uneventful. Our train arrived without incident and we made it back to our car. We made a feeble attempt to leave the parking garage... being used to paying as we exit at parking garages back home, we drove up to the drop arm and were severely disappointing. The machine, entirely in German, wouldn't take our parking ticket... and after pressing the "help" button, struggling to decipher what the guy was telling us, determined we needed to go to a pay station first, then come back with the paid-and-stamped ticket. We managed to convince the people behind us to let us pull to the side, so I could hop out and find a pay machine. Back to the machine, and this time, with great success, we were on the road, on our way back to base.
Phew - another weekend adventure in the books! Leah has one day of work this week, followed by our final two adventures back-to-back: Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and Frankfurt. Stay tuned!
(Cheeky speaking) It snowed enough to accumulate the night before we left for Paris, which is a rare thing around here! In what must've been a sudden loss of sanity, the humans left the warm apartment and went outside. They rolled around in the snow, and built what they kept calling "snowmen" ... though the creations were neither bipedal nor gender specific. Hmm. Ross started off with a giant snow ball which collapsed under its own weight, sending him into a snow-crushing frenzy. Eventually he put a second, moderately sized snowball together, and seemed content. Leah's version came together without problems, though was slightly crooked. Decorated with sticks and nuts for eyes, the humans seemed content and went inside to warm up with some manwich soup (when all you have is a slow cooker, some things are hard to make!)
Note: The "snowmen" collapsed about 30 minutes later... it was very wet snow and about 34 degrees outside, so everything melted quickly. By the morning, the only snow left on the ground were the ruins of these majestic statues.
Day 1, morning: To Paris
(Leah speaking) Our train to Paris left early Saturday morning, so we got to the station a bit early to park and grab some breakfast - I had a big floppy bread of mozzarella and tomatoes and Ross had a "Fitness Brotchen" (brotchen=bread.) Once we were fueled up, we headed for our train, platform 3 (I was hoping for platform 9 3/4) where we ran into one of my deployed co-workers, and his wife, who was also visiting for the holidays. The train arrived right on schedule and we quickly got to our seats.
We took the "ICE" bullet train from Kaiserslautern. With only two stops between us and Paris, and hitting 200mph at one point, it was a mere 2 hour ride in total... nice and quick! It started out cold and rainy when we left Germany, but the sun popped out along the way, a welcome treat as we hadn't seen much of the sun at all since Ross has been here (apparently Germany is just like Wisconsin, we don't see much of the sun all winter.)
When we arrived in Paris, it was fairly warm - in the mid-50s! We walked into the train station to hit the bathroom before trying to find metro tickets. The bathrooms were pay toilets, which is relatively common in Europe. We each paid our 70 cents to pee. The ladies' line was 10 times as long as the men's - go figure! After that was taken care of, we scoped out the massive line for metro passes and quickly determined it would be faster to just walk to our hotel than wait. The walk was pretty easy and got to the hotel in probably the same amount of time it would have taken to get a metro ticket.
We arrived at our Hotel Montmarte Amour around noon, but our room wasn't ready yet. We left our bags and headed back to the metro to do some exploring in the city. The station we went to did not have a long line for tickets, but there were some unsavory dudes trying to sell us "good deal" passes. We kept telling him no, since we wanted 3-day passes and not whatever probably-expired or stolen junk he was trying to sell us. He got grouchy and said "F*** you and F*** your money!" ... Welcome to Paris. *sigh*. That was the only trouble we really had on the metro. Once we had our tiny little three day-unlimited ride tickets, we were ready to ride! It took a minute to figure out where to put the ticket to get through the gate, but once that was figured out, we were almost pros. We looked up what line we needed and headed towards our first destination: The Louvre.
Day 1, afternoon: The Louvre
(Ross speaking) Two days before we left, we watched The Da Vinci Code. By the time we arrived at the Louvre, we were ready to uncover all the secrets and look behind paintings, though were slightly concerned about what Paris prisons would be like. As we arrived, there were lots of people walking around outside near the famous glass pyramid, posing so it looks like their finger is touching the top of the pyramid. You know what they say... "When in Rome!" ... I lined up a perfect shot of Leah doing this for our memory books!
By the time we were done goofing around with photos and hopped into the line to enter the museum, it had started to sprinkle, but nothing that would scare us away. Hovering all around the waiting line are all the street vendors selling crappy little Eiffel tower trinkets and umbrellas. One of them was really trying to push the umbrellas... he kept saying "Umbrella, umbrella umbrella" over and over in his strange foreign (not french) accent... not sure how well it worked for him, but there were enough of them there that they must be making some money! After maybe 45 min in line we made it into the Louvre.
We only had 4 or 5 hours to explore what the Louvre had to offer, so we tried to make the most of it. We saw plenty of cool works of art, including The Mona Lisa. It's quite amusing trying to get up to see it. The painting itself isn't very large, but it has an entire wall to itself, and it's behind bulletproof glass. We smashed in with the rest of the crowd and were amused with everyone else taking photos and selfies of it. Photographic masterpieces that they'll share with their great grandchildren, I'm sure!
Aside from the Mona Lisa, we saw all sorts of things. TONS of paintings of Jesus (usually in two forms: as a baby or at his death. Neither of us had seem a more extensive collection of just those two subjects.) One of my favorite paintings is "Pandemonium" by John Martin which depicts an army of demons in front of a hell fortress... very impressive, showing the vastness and terror that of this place. Leah enjoyed all the statues of Mercury (aka Hermes) scattered throughout the museum. He's the Roman messenger god with wings on his ankles (she has those tattoos on her ankles!) We both liked the paintings of a faces made entirely of fruits and vegetables - we're pretty sure that will be us someday!
By 4pm, we noticed that, having skipped lunch to get to the museum, we were famished! We stopped in the museum cafe and had a salad and caprese sandwich, super tasty Schweppes drinks (tangerine flavor and a (virgin) mojito flavor ... If you see them, try them, you won't be disappointed!) and finally some vanilla filled pastries for dessert ... YUM! Once we gobbled up our food, we headed back into the museum. We only had about 60-90 minutes left, so we tried to get a few more exhibits in.
We saw some Ancient Egyptian art and endless halls of statues. The size of this place cannot be explained - it'd take months to see it all! We found one painting particularly amusing: King Louis IV, with a comically smug look on his face, standing triumphantly on a slain multi-headed dragon... all while missing pants. It's as if he's saying "Yep, check me out. I just killed this beast, no big deal. Oh, you noticed I wasn't wearing pants? Take it all in. I look magnificent." Every painting or statue of this guy seems to have this facial expression - he was probably a blast to be around!
At about 5:30pm, the "museum-is-closing" announcement was made, so we headed towards the exit. There, we found the inverted pyramid from The Da Vinci Code and almost started digging (we know the secret!) but opted for some photos instead. There's a small mall as you exit the museum and head to the metro station, which we skipped, and headed for our next stop instead.
Day 1, evening: Wine Cave, Dirty Dicks, and the Moulin Rogue
(Leah speaking) A quick metro ride took us to another part of Paris. The fun thing about the metro is that you're not quite sure what you're going to see when you come up from underground. A park? A city street? A dark alley? Your guess is as good as mine. Even though we had some maps we never knew quite where to go once we were on the surface. Thanks to screenshots and GPS, we found Caves Auges fairly easily.
Caves Auges is a wine store that has probably thousands of bottles of wine all over the place, the walls are filled from floor to ceiling, with barely any room to walk around. After a little exploration we found a cherry table wine that sounded good. A worker explained the intricacies - that we'll need to let it breathe for 30 minutes after we open it to release the natural gas that builds up in the bottle. It was amazing that they know so much about all the different wine in the shop.
By now, it was getting late, but we thought we'd take a chance at another Paris landmark, the Catacombs. They were open until 8:30, letting people in until 7:30. It was only 7, but the line was so long that we missed the cutoff... bummer! Guess that will be on the list next time we come to Paris! We hopped back on to the metro and headed back towards our hotel in Montmartre instead.
We finally got into our room and settled in for a little bit. It had been a long day, and we were tempted to just call it a night, but decided to push onward and check out a bit of the Paris nightlife. Our hotel was at the base of the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, so we climbed a few hundred stairs up to the church. Similar to coming around the corner and finding the big cathedral in Strasbourg, when we reached the top of the stairs, we looked up and BAM! there was the basilica. It's a huge, very impressive building. The view from the top of hill was even more impressive - you can see the whole city, including the Eiffel Tower all lit up, if you don't mind the wind. Yikes!
The basilica was open for people to walk around, so we followed the crowd inside. When we first entered, it seemed as if we walked into another mass: there were a lot of people seated in the pews, someone talking and then some singing. We felt like we were intruding, but it turns out it was an opera concert - it was very good and very pretty, and we didn't feel so bad wandering around the building. We made it all around the building, taking in the cool stained glass windows, statues, and endless candles - hard to believe this place hasn't burnt down with all these open flames!
We left the basilica and headed down the stairs towards the heart of Montmartre. We came across a funny black cat that was slinking up the steps. It saw us, stopped for a second, then launched itself into a giant bush just off the side of the stairs. Was there a cat home in that bush? You'd never know by looking at it!
Finally down the stairs, after a bit of wandering, we found our dinner location: an Italian place. It was 9pm, late for dinner according to US standards, but the restaurant was packed full. I ordered a glass of Lambrusco and Ross a martini. We had a bruschetta appetizer, and each had a tasty pasta dish. My chair was right next to a radiant heater - so warm and so happy! We finished up, and set off toward a local bar that we had found the other day...."Dirty Dicks".
Why would we go to a place called Dirty Dicks? It's a tiki themed bar and their logo is two pineapples, so you know we had to check it out! It was within walking distance of our hotel too, bonus! It was shoulder-to-shoulder packed, and warm as the tropics inside. The whole place is decorated very similar to "Foundation" back home. We managed to find a menu and picked out some drinks - a Painkiller for me, and a Mai Tai for Ross. We eventually found two seats next to a few locals, and chatted about the city and what to do on New Years Eve. We finished up our conversation and drinks, and on the way out, got a photo of one of the bartenders in their double-pineapple shirt. On a whim, I asked if they sold them... for us, they sure do! I am now the proud owner of one Dirt Dick shirt - yay!
By now it was long past our bedtime, BUT the famous Moulin Rouge was within eye sight so of course we were going to stop by to check it out. On our walk we realized we stumbled upon the "Red Light District" of Paris: quite a few sassy shop and shows for all to see! There was a small crowd doing the same thing we were, just taking photos in front of Moulin Rouge. We looked into spending New Year's Eve at Moulin Rouge, but decided 1000 Euros a person was a bit too steep for us. After a photo, we headed back to the hotel.
Our hotel had the word "Amour" aka "Love" in it for a reason - the love theme is everywhere! It's well done, not tacky. Each room is named after a famous couple, ours was Paul and Tehura after Paul Gaugin and his Tahitian wife. It had been a good first day in Paris, but a long day. It was after midnight, and time to get some rest! We had lots to do for our only full day in Paris!
Steps taken: 18,631
Kilometers walked: 12
Flights of stairs climbed: 35
Day 2, morning: A boat tour and THE TOWER
(Ross speaking) We woke with a startle to our alarm - ugh! Nightlife is not so much fun come the morning! We put ourselves together, avoided touching the Nespresso machine, grabbed a few croissants from the hotel, and gobbled those on the way to the metro station. French breakfast is a goofy thing, the exact opposite of the "rib sticking" feasts back home. A traditional French breakfast is a tiny coffee, a small but delicious pastry or two, and maybe some orange juice. (Mumbles something about the USA having nearly three times the heart disease and obesity rates as France. Mmm double bacon breakfast crunchwrap supreme FTW.)
Alas, we had to keep moving to make our Sein river boat tour on time! The metro dropped us off right at Notre Dame, which we got a short glimpse of as we hustled toward Pont Neuf. Unlike the tour in Strasbourg, there was no one waiting for this one, we had time to grab a relatively normal size cup of coffee and relax before boarding. Once on board, you can choose to sit upstairs on the top of the boat, or downstairs enclosed behind windows. We opted for upstairs, which was windy and cold, but still worth it. Unlike the Strasbourg tour, there was no pre-recorded tour guide to listen to - we had a live in-person guide who gave the tour in both French and English. Sometimes it was a little hard to understand, but she did a very good job. She pointed out a bunch of bridges and famous landmarks. We saw Notre Dame, the Luxor Obelisk (located in Concorde Plaza,) the Louvre, and of course the Eiffel Tower! This was our first good look at the tower and it was great! The tour took an hour and was a good overview of Paris. We were glad it wasn't raining.
After the boat tour, we walked over to Notre Dame. We could tell the line was LONG, but what we thought was the end of the line was actually the middle: it made a U-turn and went the length of the plaza yet again. Hells no! We checked it out from the outside instead. On the way out of the plaza, we noticed the Archaeological Crypt. Our boat tour gave us a 2 Euro discount each for entry, so we checked that out instead. Turns out there were a bunch of old Roman structures, coins and artifacts buried under the current location of Notre Dame. They built the cathedral smack dab on top of these older structures, and uncovered them as they were starting to put in a parking structure (which was relocated after these ruins were found.) It wasn't the most exciting museum, but interesting nonetheless.
After the crypt, we found a corner cafe for some lunch. They were very busy and the squeezed us into a spot that seemed a bit too tight, but we all made it work. The table was barely big enough for both our plates and glasses of water. I had a veggie omelette and Leah had (French) Onion Soup and a banana & Nutella crepe. Yes, in France French Onion soup is just called onion soup.
From here, our original plan brought us to the Rodin Museum where the statues "The Thinker" and "Gates of Hell" are located. However, our excitement to see the Eiffel Tower won out and we headed straight there instead. A quick metro hop and short walk later, there it was! We had a few blocks of park to walk to get up to it, but we had finally made it. We came across a small Christmas market, including some very slushy ice skating, and breezed through that quickly - it was tiny compared to what we saw last weekend. The road right in front of the tower was blocked off, so we had to back track just a bit to find an entrance to the space under the tower. The security line was short and easy.
We wanted to climb the tower, and had heard that the line for the stairs would be shorter than the elevator, so we jumped into that line. By this time, the wind had picked up and clear skies turned to overcast. Standing in that line was not the most pleasant: The cold wind, and the three chatterboxes behind us; they were like totally valley girls, but spoke some odd language and the only words we could understand would make a sailor blush!
We toughed it out, and just as we made it to the steps up to the ticket booth, the rain started. Awesome. We weren't about to turn around at this point, so up the steps we went! It wasn't raining that hard, but it was still windy, and the rain stung. We went up quickly, only stopping briefly to read some of the information about the guy who build the Eiffel Tower: Gustave Eiffel. There are 300 steps from the ground to the first level. The view is great! You can see all of Paris. It was unfortunate that the weather wasn't better. We weren't anxious to stay very long. There was a gift shop, cafe, and bathroom on the first stop where we went in to warm up. Leah headed for the bathroom, so I quick snuck over to a vendor and picked up a necklace of a little Eiffel tower holding a round Swarovski crystal. (Leah: A wonderful memento of a fabulous weekend! Thanks, Love!)
By now, we were warm enough to make the second set of 300 stairs to level 2. The views were even better from higher up. We took some photos on each side of the tower and used the 360 degree camera as well. It was still chilly, windy, and rainy, so our stay was shorter than we would have liked, but it was time to go. Down we went, where we got a few final smooches under the tower, then set off towards out next stop.
We made a quick stop at the Arc de Triomphe, but it was closed: they were setting up for the New Year's celebration - should've seen that coming. We hopped into the nearest the metro and headed in the direction of where our dinner reservations were instead. Since we were an hour early, we stopped at the nearby "Willy's Wine Bar" - Leah had a glass of Riesling and I picked out some kind of red, both tasty. We were the only ones there, even hardly saw any staff. They, who to our surprise were British, were busy preparing the place for the New Year's Eve dinner, tut tutting around getting tables ready, slicing giant loaves of bread, etc. We eventually caught their attention, paid our bill, and made our way to dinner.
Day 2, evening: Lavish Dinner and the NYE countdown
(Leah speaking) Three steps to our left was our restaurant, Maceo. (Turns out Willy's and Maceo are owned by the same person - I noticed the same guy come into the restaurant that was rearranging champagne bottles at Willy's. The set menus looked very similar as well.) Once again, I felt extremely out of place - we were the very first people in the restaurant. Europeans must eat dinner later than us! Soon after, more people came in, so I felt better.
Like many places, there was a set menu for New Year's Eve, and there was a vegetarian option for all four courses - hurray! Both of us had the same first three courses: Pumpkin soup, vegetable risotto, and vegetable borscht. Dessert is the only place we chose different items: I had a pineapple souffle and coconut ice cream while Ross had a sherbet and fruit medley. We also ordered a bottle of Riesling and some bubbly water.
It was all very fancy: we got new silverware for each course, our main waiter always made sure to fill our wine glasses for us, and there was a small army of a staff there to take care of us. One took us to our seat, one took our food order, one took our wine order, one served all our food. It was quite the experience and definitely the most expensive dinner either of us had ever experienced. At one point, the American couple next to us started talking about vegetarianism and the man asked the woman what she considered an animal, followed by a totally reasonable scenario for her to ponder: "if you were starving...would you eat your pet cat!?" We laughed at the absurdity, but decided not to interrupt - perhaps they become stranded and starving with only pet cats to eat more often than we do!? We finished up our desserts and wine, and even though we were the first to arrive, we were not the first to leave. We managed to stretch dinner out for two hours, which meant only three hours to new years!
We had plenty of time to walk back towards the Arc de Triomphe, the epicenter of the Paris NYE celebration. By now, the rain had stopped, a welcome surprise. Along the way, we walked past the Luxor Obelisk in Concorde Plaza which is right at the end of the Champs-Elysees. Traffic was closed off, so we were free to walk down the middle of the Champs-Elysees - that's a once in a lifetime opportunity! There were two security checkpoints as we walked closer to the Arc (we later read there were nearly 2000 police officers just at our location - impressive!)
There were also giant screens set up along the road so the thousands of people that were filling in would be able to see what was projected on the Arc. While we were walking and filling in, a video was on repeat showing different spots in Paris and a video about the upcoming 2024 Olympics. About 90 minutes before midnight we decided on a spot. The closer to midnight it got, and the closer to the arc, the more and more people crammed in. Estimates from last year's celebration said there were over 600,000 people in attendance, and we have no doubt it was the same this year.
Ross has the advantage of being tall, so the amount of people wasn't a problem for him. I, on the other hand was struggling. I could see about the top half of the Arc and the closest TV screen depending on where the head in front of me was. About 30 minutes prior to midnight, different projections were displayed on the Arc with the time. They changed each minute. When it was about 20 minutes to midnight a cartoon video started to project onto the Arc. It was the story of a cat looking for its yellow-shoed owner: very cute! With one minute before midnight the people right in front of us popped their kid up on their shoulders, and now neither of us could see anything!
All of a sudden the video showed the countdown of 3 - 2 - 1! (The countdown had started with more time than that, but we missed it since the jokers in front of us were hoisting that kid up.) Luckily we caught those last 3 seconds! HAPPY NEW YEAR! A wild fireworks show ensued, with plenty of oohs and aaahs from the crowd.
In advance, we decided that we'd get the heck out of there as soon as possible, and picked some potential escape routes. The folks in charge also had that idea... less than 5 minutes after the new year, the TV screens switched away from the magical fireworks and lights show, now coldheartedly telling everyone that traffic would be starting again soon and to get to the nearest metro station. So much for the festivities!
All public transport had been free from 5pm NYE to noon on 1 Jan. We knew that the first metro station would most likely be packed so we just started walking in the general direction of our hotel thinking another metro might be better. When you have over a half million people crammed into one small area, getting them out is no easy task. We imagined this would be what a mass evacuation during a zombie apocalypse would be like. The first metro station was worse than we imagined, the entire entrance was completely overstuffed with people up onto the sidewalk and into the streets... hard to imagine what it looked like underground. The streets were packed with pedestrians past the second and third metro stations... this was the biggest crowd either of us have ever been in.
We ended up walking the whole way to our hotel - it probably took the same amount of time (or less) than trying to fit onto public transport. The closer to our hotel we got, the less crowded it got. We survived! We made it back just before 2am, totally spent. After disabling all alarm clocks, we got to bed.
Kilometers traveled: 14.2
Equivalent flights climbed: 62
Day 3: A slow morning, and back to base
(Ross speaking) Needless to say, we slept in on our final day in Paris! We weren't sure what time checkout was, but weren't too concerned about it. We managed to get our butts moving and out of the room by noon, checked out, our deposit back, and hit the road looking for some breakfast.
It was a very rainy morning, enough to bust out the umbrella. A small cafe just across the street from our hotel offered a traditional petit dejeuner, so we each ordered one. A glass of orange juice, cup of coffee, two croissants, and another pastry with chocolate. SO GOOD! We were determined to eat some croissants while in Paris, so after breakfast we found a bakery to get more baked goods to go. We got a traditional baguette, some croissants, a baguette with butter and cheese, and a round flaky pastry with some sweet almond paste filling. Everything was delicious, and we're still kicking ourselves for not buying more!
Being New Years Day, we knew a lot of things would be closed, and the cold rain made exploring the outdoors difficult. We rolled the dice and headed back to the mall attached to the Louvre - nope, the gate from the metro station was closed and locked, drat! We surfaced, and wandered along a few streets, past the handful of shops and tourist traps that were actually open. Eventually we found the only place to get an American sized coffee: Starbucks. We hung out there for a bit while the rain cleared. Since it was sunny for the moment, we started walking. We saw some big impressive building (the Paris Opera) off in the distance, so we made our way towards it. It was closed, but we were able to meander around the outside, which was beautifully adorned with statues and carvings (isn't everything around here?)
With not much left open, we hopped on the nearest metro and back to the train station where our train was due to depart in a few hours. We browsed a nearby bakery, where Leah picked up some treats that she remembers having back in Djibouti. We had some adventures with the local pay toilets (don't ask) and then bummed around in the train station for our last bits of time in Paris. Good people watching! Plenty of crazies, and people from all walks of life moving about. There was also a piano sitting there for anyone who felt like playing it, and someone sat down and played a few Skyrim songs - what are the odds!?
We found our train, got to our seats, and settled in for the 2 1/2 hour ride. About half way through, Leah wasn't feeling well, so we made our way to the food car for some fizzy water and snacks. This helped, got her away from vomit town, and the rest of the ride was uneventful. Our train arrived without incident and we made it back to our car. We made a feeble attempt to leave the parking garage... being used to paying as we exit at parking garages back home, we drove up to the drop arm and were severely disappointing. The machine, entirely in German, wouldn't take our parking ticket... and after pressing the "help" button, struggling to decipher what the guy was telling us, determined we needed to go to a pay station first, then come back with the paid-and-stamped ticket. We managed to convince the people behind us to let us pull to the side, so I could hop out and find a pay machine. Back to the machine, and this time, with great success, we were on the road, on our way back to base.
Phew - another weekend adventure in the books! Leah has one day of work this week, followed by our final two adventures back-to-back: Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and Frankfurt. Stay tuned!
All I can say is . . . W O W ! Memories to last a life-time...and more to come!
ReplyDeleteThe photos, video, and writings were awesome! You two have the knack to take us there with you... I'm amazed at all that you've seen and done!
I look forward to your next epic adventure... can it get any more epic (?)
I'm Mighty envious!
Love ~ Meem